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On her 57th day perched atop a pole, a Mountain Valley Pipeline protester decided to come down Wednesday.
Known publicly only as “Nutty,” the woman wrote in a Facebook post that she ran out of food several days ago and was forced to leave her position on a small platform suspended from a 50-foot pole blocking a construction access road in the Jefferson National Forest.

The cost of college is going up again.
The average tuition and mandatory fees increase for Virginia undergraduate students at state schools was 5.4 percent last year, up from the 2016-17 average increase of 4.6 percent.
It’s not stopping there.

Tourism in Virginia continues booming.
The tourism industry, the state’s fifth-largest employer, reached $25 billion in revenue in 2017. That’s a 4.4 percent increase over 2016, according to new statewide data released Tuesday.

Virginia’s senators have joined the list of federal lawmakers who want to legalize the commercial production of industrial hemp and define the plant as a commodity.
Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner announced Wednesday that they’ve signed on as co-sponsors of the Hemp Farming Act of 2018. The bill’s major step is to remove the crop from the list of Schedule I controlled substances, which would clear the way for hemp to be grown legally and be transported across state lines.

Rep. Tom Garrett, R-5th, might not seek re-election in November, a report said.
A story Politico published Wednesday afternoon stated that Garrett, who is in his first term, had split with his chief of staff and would not be seek his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives again.
Multiple requests for confirmation from Garrett’s campaign staff were met with “no comment.”

Washington and Virginia political observers are buzzing over whether U.S. Rep. Tom Garrett, R-5th, will not run for re-election.
But a good friend and former seat mate of Garrett’s in the Virginia Senate said Wednesday afternoon that no one should assume anything yet.

With less than three weeks to go before the June 12 Democratic primary in the 7th Congressional District, the vice chairman of Culpeper County’s Democratic committee quit his leadership role following a dust-up between members over how to conduct business.

Asked about Wednesday reports that he would not be running for re-election, Virginia Rep. Tom Garrett would only say he has no plans to leave Congress before the end of the session.
“I’m not resigning. I can tell you that definitively,” Garrett told Roll Call.

In normal times, a symbolic resolution commending the Federal Bureau of Investigation might pass the Virginia House of Delegates without a whiff of controversy. These are not normal times.
On the same day that President Donald Trump fired off new Twitter attacks against the “Criminal Deep State,” Del. Marcus Simon, D-Fairfax, filed a House resolution commending the FBI for 110 years of service.